A seriously sissified shooting story

I’m an old guy who grew up playing rough-and-tumble from an early age, fighting when necessary to maintain my place in the upper-middle of the testosterone-fueled hierarchy in my small southern town, a kid who couldn’t wait to get his first gun and go hunting and was later equally eager to learn the professional use of many lethal military weapons in combat against a deadly enemy. So it’s really difficult for me to believe that any man could publicly and apparently proudly proclaim himself to be such a totally emasculated milquetoast, and an ill-informed one at that, as New York Daily News reporter Gersh Kuntzmann has done with this error-filled hit piece on the AR-15 rifle – which was, of course, timed to take advantage of the atrocity in Orlando.

If Kuntzmann has masochistic tendencies, then today he must be basking resplendently in the utter contempt and ridicule being directed his way from millions of American gun owners who read his article, opening with this sentence: “It feels like a bazooka – and sounds like a cannon,” about a lightweight sporting rifle that is so easy to handle that it is popular enough with teenage female shooters to be manufactured in hot pink Barbie versions. But an admittedly “terrified” Kuntzmann goes on to proudly parade his ignorance by inferring that such a weapon can fire a forty-round “clip” in less than five seconds.

Right here I’ll wager Kuntzmann any amount he chooses that he can’t possibly fire forty rounds from an AR-15 in less than five seconds, because an AR-15 is a semi-automatic weapon, which requires the trigger to be pulled back fully to firing position for every individual round fired. Even with his pinky finger fully extended, Gersh just ain’t that good a gunner. He simply can’t operate that trigger that fast. By the way, you can always tell a liberal writer expounding on firearms because they invariably use the term “clip” rather than the correct term “magazine.” And, Kuntzmann, magazines are typically configured for 20 or 30 rounds, not 40, as anyone with minimal knowledge of firearms knows.

But it is in the actual firing of the weapon that Gersh seriously sissifies himself:

The recoil bruised my shoulder. The brass shell casings disoriented me as they flew past my face. The smell of sulfur and destruction made me sick. The explosions – loud like a bomb – gave me a temporary case of PTSD. For at least an hour after firing the gun just a few times, I was anxious and irritable.

I gotta tell you, Kuntzmann, you had millions of American gun owners guffawing with that bit of hissy-fit histrionics. Thousands of teenage girls fire the AR-15 routinely, and they can tell you, the recoil is minimal compared to most sporting rifles. And those unbruised young ladies have the presence of mind not to let themselves become disoriented by those absolutely icky brass shell casings flying past as they steel themselves not to be overcome by the smell of destruction, whatever the hell that is, and the bomb-like muzzle blasts that gave you temporary PTSD, whatever the hell that is, and made you anxious andirritable for at least an hour.

Good grief, Kuntzmann, don’t you have a clue what a complete pantywaist you have described yourself to be? It’s not just real men who are laughing at you – it’s real women as well.

If there is a lesson to be learned from this silly bit of reporting it is that editors should not send silly twits to cover issues of which they have no knowledge or experience. Being the old politically incorrect dinosaur I am, I’d just say, “Don’t send a girl to do a man’s job.”